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25 Ill. 228

Cunningham v. Hamilton

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided November 15, 1860

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1860-11-15

Jesse R. Cunningham filed his declaration in replevin, in the usual form, against William R. Hamilton, for the wrongful detention of one bay horse, the property of the plaintiff, of the value of one hundred dollars. To this declaration the defendant plead: 1st. Non detinet; and plaintiff added similiter. 2nd. That the property was not the property of the plaintiff; and plaintiff added similiter. 3rd. That it was the property of one Milton Williford. 4th.

Relies on Brown v. Riley

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1860-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently February 1978

1 federal appellate · 14 state decisions

40186018701880189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Breese, J.

¶1We think the errors in this case are well assigned. There seems to us to be an entire absence of facts or circumstances tending to vitiate this transaction, and stamp it with fraud. The chattel mortgage on the horse is of unquestioned validity, and the testimony of his delivery to the mortgagee on the evening before the maturity of the note, and the breach of the condition of the mortgage, and the destruction of the note thereupon, is undisputed. The evidence is clear on these points. On the delivery, the horse became for every purpose, the property of the mortgagee, who could loan him, mortgage, sell him, or do as he pleased with him. It was his property.

¶2But it is said, the loaning him to the mortgagor, after he had been in the possession of the mortgagee two or three days, was fraudulent per se. We think not. The title to the horse was perfect in the mortgagee, and he had a right to loan or hire him to the mortgagor or to any one else. He had been in the possession of the mortgagee long enough to apprise all parties of the change of ownership. The whole transaction bears none of the indicia of a fraud in law or in fact. We cannot distinguish the case from that of Brown v. Riley, 22 Ill. 45. In principle it is the same, and must be decided in the same way.

¶3The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded.

¶4Judgment reversed

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